


Age 12: Sam Vimes Jr goes missing for the first time

by catintheinfinite (michelle439731)



Series: A Difficult Age [1]
Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-05
Updated: 2018-07-05
Packaged: 2019-06-05 21:45:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15180038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/michelle439731/pseuds/catintheinfinite
Summary: Sam Vimes Jr goes missing for the first time.





	Age 12: Sam Vimes Jr goes missing for the first time

Vimes didn’t know where it had all gone wrong. It had perhaps started when Sam had not wanted to hold his hand when they walked the city any more. Perhaps it had been when Sam had first been late to read for him. Or when this had happen for a second time. Then Sam didn’t want to read with him at all, racing ahead in the story he was able to read much faster in his own head. What Vimes knew was it had not gone wrong in one single place that he could have gone back and changed. The cart was crashing and all Vimes could do was watch.

Vimes had never considered the idea of becoming a father before Sam came along. It had never occurred to him no matter how many lance-constables he’d apparently raised through the Watch. Without a memory of a father though his own teenage years he had raised young Sam as best he could. He had been doing well, he had thought. Their relationship had just vaguely sauntered downwards. It had started somewhere, perhaps years ago and here is where it had led him. Here didn’t feel like an ending though. Here felt like a very bad beginning.

The current situation he found himself in was all his fault. It had begun, innocently enough, with Vimes wanting Sam to spend more time with boys his own age.

Young Sam didn’t have much interaction with other children apart from when Sybil took him to tea with other families or at the balls he was allowed to stay up an attend. At his age Vimes had had brothers, sisters, cousins of all degrees sharing his house, his bed. It would be character building for young Sam. He would learn about the teamwork and about not getting his own way with the other children, not even when he used his mothers tone of voice.

Sybil had raised the idea of sending him to boarding school in Quirm. Lots of fine boys had been raised there, she herself had attended the College for Young Ladies, and while she had not had the best time herself, there was no reason to suspect that young Sam wouldn’t flourish within such an environment.

Vimes, selfishly, had said no. He did not like the idea of not seeing young Sam everyday. He had been so small when Sybil had first suggested it that Vimes did not have to put much effort into persuading her against it. They hired a tutor and put the idea of school off for a year. The year came and went, Vimes thought about not tucking his boy into bed every night, they hired another tutor. The decision was deferred again and again and then young Sam turned twelve.

The important thing about turning twelve was that on his next birthday he would be thirteen, and thirteen was apprenticing age. Sam was looking forward to it. Sam would not shut up about it. Vimes tried very hard not to think about it. As the son of an aristocrat it was expected that young Sam would be apprenticed with the Assassins. The harder Vimes tried not to think about it the more Sam seemed to bring it up. Young Sam could tell his dad wasn’t happy but Vime’s be damned if he was going to say anything. Sam could also tell that his dad wasn’t talking about something and this was just another black mark against his parenting abilities.

As much as Vimes didn’t want Sam to go to the Assassins school he didn’t want him to have a bad time there either. He became consumed with the idea that he had somehow raised a child who was spoilt on the wealth and privilege he gained from his mother’s side. Young Sam did not show any signs of this but Vimes understood that fathers could be blind to this sort of thing.

So that morning he had encouraged Sam to go with Captain Carrot to play football with the boy from the Shades. Vimes had wanted Sam to see another side of Ankh-Morpork before he was dropped into a concentrated environment of boys from aristocratic families. He wanted him to learn that some boys were raised hard. He had wanted Sam to perhaps get a little hard himself.

Vimes even hoped the experience might help him understand his father a little more too.

He had been confident that under the Captains supervision no harm was going to come to his boy, still small for his age. All the lads down there were well behaved around the Captain and whatever blanket of magic that protected him, Vimes was sure would extend over his son.

What Vimes had not anticipated, however, was Sam suddenly reaching the decision that he no longer wanted to be shepherded about the city by various Watchmen and articulated his new point-of-view to Carrot by punching him between his legs.

This unexpected act of disobedience towards Carrot had distracted the universe such that for a moment it no longer curved around the Captain, which was more than enough for the other boys to run amok. A brief skirmish of stick and stone had occurred between rival gangs before they rapidly vanished into the alleys. When Carrot got back to his feet, young Sam had disappeared.

Now here was Captain Carrot, helmet clutched in his hands, informing Vimes that young Sam had run off and had eluded the Watch’s best efforts to find him for at least half an hour.

Carrot had searched and he’d sent Angua out. She had then sent the rest of the lance-constables out. They were searching but very quietly. Carrot understood that young Sam would be considered valuable property. He had thought it best that he come and tell Vimes directly that he had been run away from. “Are you sure he’s not come back here?”

Vimes shot daggers out his eyes at the Captain. “Find. My. Son. Captain.”

 

The clocks struck four across Ankh-Morpork and there was still nothing on the clacks to say that Young Sam had been located. Vimes tried to stay calm. His boy was smart but still small for his age. Sam was soft and the boys of the Shades were hard and hungry. Vimes should know, he had been one of them. He tried very hard not to think about how he would have treated the son of a Duke had one of them wandered into his gang’s territory.

The Watch was out looking and questioning but it was unlikely they’d get anything out of the kids from the Shades, even if they could catch them. The gangs weren’t going to tell the coppers anything, as for the rest. Vimes remembered that the Watch had never put much of an effort into tracking down runaway kids from the Shades when he had been younger. Even now they didn’t do enough, but there was not much they could do. Kids ran away all the time. Vimes felt cold in his heart about the ‘special circumstances’ being put in place to find his boy. Private law for the son of Sir Samuel Vimes, the Commander using the Watch for his own personal errands. A boy of twelve should be able to be by himself without the law being called.

He told Sybil at five o’clock. She was not as worried as he was. Sybil was strong and sensible and never worried about Sam. The boy was twelve for goodness sake and regularly went off on his own when they summered at Curndells. That was the country though, and young Sam hadn’t really been on his own, not with Willikins keeping an eye from the shadows. Sybil pointed out that she had toured the city by herself back in the day. Vimes did not point out that she would not have started in the Shades and would have stayed on the Ankh side of the river.

Carrot appeared again when it was almost six. The boy still had not been found and he had come to double check that young Sam had not come home on his own. The Captain couldn’t figure a boy who wouldn’t just come home after running off.

Vimes opened his to make a comment that was sure to fly over Carrot’s head when he heard the front door open and recognised the footsteps of young Sam Vimes Jr trudge across the main hall. The dining room door pushed open and in slouched Vimes’ son flopping down onto his chair opposite Vimes. He didn’t look his father in the eye. He knew he was in trouble.

“Where the hell have you been?” Vimes yelled out of fear and relief more than anger.

Sam said nothing but there came a voice from the door. “Sorry sir, he was with me.” Nobby stood there helmet in hand, fishing out a cigarette from behind his ear to chew on. “We’ve been,” he made a vague gesture, “around.”

“Around! Around? You were gone all afternoon, no one could find you.” Vimes realised he was still yelling but it was too late.

“What are you yelling at him for?” Sam yelled back, Vimes’ attention snapped to his son. “What are you yelling at anyone for? I came home didn’t I? I’m here for dinner aren’t I? I don’t need a bloody chaperone to go about the city.”

“Language Sam.” Said his mother.

Sam didn’t acknowledge her, he was on a roll. “Don’t need your watch spying on me, following me. You gonna send a spy to school with me next year too? Why can’t you just leave me alone?” With that Sam kicked back his chair and stormed out of the room slamming doors and stomping up the stairs.

Vimes yelled at him to get back in there, but it didn’t have the same effect on his son that it used to.

“He’s just at that age Sir,” Nobby said completely unfazed by the small ball of anger young Sam had transformed into.

“Where did you go Nobby?” Vimes now deflated sat down. “I’ve had people out looking for you.”

“Oh I was teaching the boy how to shake hands with door knobs round in the Monkey Street, by the Smugglers Guild. He’s pretty fast learner. He’s having a tough time out there, thinks you don’t like him. Cor what a mouth he’s got on him when he starts up, kept calling you ‘old Sam’. I saw things going South with the lads in the Shades and got him out quick like. Thought you’d appreciate that.”

“That was very kind of you, thank you Nobby,” said Sybil.

“Lads just short and wants to take on the world. Told him when you aren’t tall you have to wait till people are down before you kick them. Carrot didn’t see it coming, just folded like a something-that-shouldn’t-fold. If it’s any consolation I think the boys of the Shades have to a lot of admiration for anyone that can do that, even your little prince.”

Vimes hated that nickname that young Sam had earned among the officers. “How did you hide him?”

“Hide him? Why should I hide him? He said he thought he’d better be back for six o’clock though. Said six o’clock was important. I’ll just, er, push off then, unless any of this food is going?”

Sybil looked like she was about to ask Nobby to dine with them but Vimes stood, thanked Nobby for his help and guided him out the door before Nobby helped himself to any more of their cutlery.

 

After Nobby had left Vimes went up to Sam’s room to try and coax him down for some food. His mother would have managed in half the time but it was his father who had shouted at him so it was up to his father to fix the problem. For Vimes to at least explain to his son why he had been yelling.

He knocked and waited. This was very important. Sam was in charge of who came into his room now. If he didn’t want his father in then then he would stay out. “Sam,” the ‘can you come down to dinner’ was on the tip of his tongue but Vimes bit it back. “I want to apologise.”

“So apologise. I didn’t do nothing wrong. Not to you anyway. And I came home, that’s all I did and you yell at me for doing that. I hate you.”

Vimes winced, it hurt. It hurt every time Sam said that, whether he was in a fit of temper or with his wits about him knowing how much it hurt his father. It didn’t matter how many times Sybil had said ‘he doesn’t mean it, he’s just at that age’. Vimes hoped “that age” would blow past soon.

Vimes rested his head against the door frame. “I was scared that you had run off. I didn’t know where you were, that made me act stupid. I’m sorry.” Vimes said all this to the closed door. Apologising to the teak was easier and his son had always opened the door in the past. Vimes worried about the day young Sam realised he didn’t have to. He balled his hands into fists but he would not would not would not beat his fist against the door, break his way in and demand that his son come down to dinner. Instead he said, “Please come down to dinner.”

The door opened and Vimes over-rode the overwhelming instinct to jam his foot in to keep it wedged open.

“I wasn’t running away on purpose,” explained Sam. “I just didn’t want to play Uncle Carrots game. Everyone was bigger than me and they didn’t want to play on my team. So Uncle Carrot said that he’d be on my team. Then i’d win for sure and it wouldn’t be fair. I’m sorry for punching him. I got mad. But then Nobby said we were going to go play something else just ourselves.” Sam shuffled out the door in front of his father. “He’s not in trouble is he? He didn’t do nothing wrong? Honest.”

“Apart from a little light breaking and entering.” Vimes looked down at his son.

“Those doors were unlocked,” said Sam in an uncanny interpretation of Nobby.

“Hmm.” Said Vimes, but course corrected before he started interrogating his son. Sam was starting to catch on to the technique. “Come down to dinner.”

Young Sam pushed passed him and hopped down the stairs, his father watched him go. The storm seemed to have passed for now but Vimes could see darker weather patterns on the horizon. This was going to happen more frequently. He just had to try to weather it best he could and try to keep his relationship on an even keel until it was over. This had just been a squall, there was a storm coming.


End file.
